this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2024
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Right. We are in agreement. And indeterminism says that those natural things are not sufficient explanations of experimental results. There is something going on in Aspect's experiment
Determinism: things are fully explained by natural phenomena, i.e. by observable elements of the physical universe
Indeterminism: observable elements of the physical universe are insufficient to explain experimental results; there is something else, like randomness
We must be misunderstanding each other somewhere. Surely you're not saying that zero physicists argue indeterminism? Obviously many/most physicists believe in indeterminism.
Lev Vaidman: "Historically, appearance of the quantum theory led to a prevailing view that Nature is indeterministic.... Quantum theory and determinism usually do not go together." (Vaidman, L. (2014). Quantum theory and determinism. Quantum Studies: Mathematics and Foundations, 1(1-2), 5–38. doi:10.1007/s40509-014-0008-4)
Yes. And these ludicrous claims are standard in physics for decades now. Specifically, the ludicrous claim that most physicists believe is that there are things going on without natural causes (Natural means pretty much “element of the physical universe, identified by observation”). That's an extremely standard ludicrous claim about our ludicrous universe.
That's false.
Please calm down.
According to who, exactly? This is just not even remotely true.
If you want to continue this, link me the papers that have any support to what you are proposing, I'm tired of fighting vague, unsubstantiated claims and you dodging every point I try to make.
???
I think I am misunderstanding you.
My simple uncontroversial claims: A) indeterminism means natural/observable causes are not sufficient to explain all experimental results, B) plenty of physicists (most) believe in indeterminism. Then my funny claim for the craic was C) you can use the word 'supernatural' to describe those effects because they are not natural ("Natural means pretty much “element of the physical universe, identified by observation”.")
When you say my claims are "not even remotely true", and you want me to "support what you are proposing", which of these claims is it?
It appears from context to be the first: the claim that indeterminism means events are not explained by their causes. But that's just the definition of indeterminism like. What is your counter-claim? If you deny that indeterminism means things aren't determined by observable causes, then what does it mean?
An example in a textbook: "If the world is genuinely indeterministic in this way, then it isn’t possible to provide a dynamical explanation of how a system produces a particular outcome in a quantum measurement — the outcome is intrinsically random." – that's from Ch.7 of Quantum [Un]speakables II, edited by Bertlmann and Zeilinger. You can also read section 3 of Ch.1 of Dirac's 1930 textbook.
I have linked two papers and an encylopædia entry already; you have not substantiated your claims with anything.
Here is an example of indeterminacy being "certified" in experiment that you might find interesting: Pironio, S., Acin, A., Massar, S., Boyer de la Giroday, A., Matsukevich, D.N., Maunz, P., Olmschenk, S., Hayes, D., Luo, L., Manning, T.A., Monroe, C.: Random numbers certified by Bell’s theorem. Nature 464, 1021 (2010)
Heisenberg proved in Uber den anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik in 1927 that there is an uncertainty associated with measurement. There are deterministic interpretations (e.g. many-worlds: "The existence of the other worlds makes it possible to remove randomness" or Bohm's interpretation of nonlocal hidden variables) and indeterministic interpretations (e.g. Copenhagn: "Today the Copenhagen interpretation is mostly regarded as synonymous with indeterminism")
I have not dodged anything. I'm not sure what "point" you're making. You seem to be saying that indeterminism doesn't mean "things aren't determined by observable causes" but yep that's what indeterminism means.
None of these is uncontroversial, C isn't even well-defined. I'd argue that B is correct only if A is correct. And A cannot be correct, since it leads to multitude of cotnradictions, one of which I'm going to demonstrate.
No, it most definitely is not. If you used this as a definition, I'm fairly certain that most physicists would absolutely not agree with your B.
Indeterminism means that if an experiment is repeated with the same parameters, there are no guarantees to get the same result. Nothing more than that.
Your definition implies that there needs to be a cause in the first place. And that is bordering on begging the question, because with that definition you are guaranteed to reach a point where there is something "unexplainable" (since there are infinite amount of layers), which can always be attributed to whatever supernatural thing you choose. There is absolutely no need for this to be the case.
In fact, you yourself quoted the textbook
Emphasis mine. That means, there is no cause, it's an intrinsic property of the theory, especially in Copenhagen interpretation, which is the status quo. As your definition implies a cause, it cannot apply here. There are other contradictions, but this one is simple and I only need one to show that the premise is flawed, and your other points rely on that.
My only claim is that you are incorrect. There aren't really too many papers written about that. (I hope) I've shown your premise to be false because of faulty definitions, what more would you need? None of the stuff you quoted is supporting you, and in fact contradicts you, unless we specifically assume that other people use the definition you've given, which, again, is already shown to be erroneous.
Ok, we are in agreement on everything.